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Controversial Controversy

Hello everyone, its me here and in the spirit of the holiday season, I want to share with you something that may cause offense. Its an article I wrote earlier in the year, debated not publishing but ultimately decided to after opting to throw in this preamble for your eyes.

Before I get to what the piece is about, I want to ask you something, do I seem like I’m a bigot? Someone who would tear off in the night to terrorize religious and ethnic minorities in the name of some twisted ideology followed by backwards and ignorant buffoons?

No? I didn’t think so. But, as the video where I got the cover image from this article brilliantly shows, far too often when one criticizes actions or policy put in place by the nation of Israel or focuses on the Palestinian perspective in the region, you’re either labeled an Anti-Semite (Incorrectly I might add, as the Semitic peoples’ were not just those who practiced the Jewish faith. For real, look it up.) or a defender of bloodthirsty apartheid that kills children and has caused a region (Gaza) to wither on the vine.

As long as this status quo is in place, we will never be able to fully solve the problems in the region. What is needed is intellectual honesty and tough, but fair criticism. Below, you’ll find a piece I wrote as a rebuttal to one published by a prominent Israeli figure. I hope you like it, find it reasoned and seek out more writing like it in the near future.

Lord knows the world could use a touch more reason, am I right?

I run from Iran and Israel

The Islamic Republic and the Jewish State behave in similar ways

By Evan J. Pretzer

The Middle East is home to ridiculous lies. There’s the conspiracy theory the Islamic State was created by the United States of America[1], fears about the Muslim Brotherhood’s Egyptian chapter infiltrating our federal government[2] and the idea Iran is a dangerous nation.

This week, former Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon attempted to reinforce the last lie in the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times.[3] He is terribly misinformed or wildly dishonest.

Ya’alon begins by noting the nations support for Bashar Assad in Syria, references aid given to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the arming of Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now, to someone not familiar with the region, this does sound like some shady behaviour. There’s just one problem, the nation Ya’alon calls home has done similar things.

In the 1970s while Ya’alon was making his career in the Israeli Defense Forces, his country’s national intelligence agency was working with the secret police supporting the Shah of Iran.[4] More recently, while Ya’alon was working within the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, his nation sold $318 million shekels worth of military equipment to South Sudan and other countries in Africa with dubious records on human rights and democratic societal order.[5]

The former Defense Minister also references the mistaken McDonald’s theory of peace[6] and claims as long as the ayatollah governs Iran, repression and executions will continue and there will be no lasting stability in the region. To be fair, he is correct when he says the covert actions taken by Iran do not bring about calm, but nor do those committed by Israel.

From the start of the millennium to 2014, six thousand Palestinians were killed by Israelis and just a thousand Israelis were killed by Palestinians, according to B’Tselem.[7] That’s a low level civil war and also doesn’t contribute to the well-being of the greater Middle East.

If Mr. Ya’alon wants “destabilizing policies” to end, he should focus first on his home before getting into the lives of others. As is clearly demonstrated, much like Iran, Israel has a lot to answer for domestically, in the region and throughout other parts of the world.